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Monster Dash Recap

This week of running was supposed to be a recovery week, instead it was a rude awakening of how not every race is going to be a good one. My first run of the week went really well, it was a 6 mile pace run. I did it on the treadmill and felt great. Maybe I should have taken it easy to rest up, but that was Tuesday and my race was on Saturday. Plus I’ve been upping the mileage and felt okay in my long runs so I wasn’t too concerned.

Wednesday night I headed to the gym to meet with my personal trainer. I told him I wanted to try some crossfit type workouts with heavier lifting. I don’t know if you have seen girls who are legit at crossfit, but their bodies are amazing and I want to be them. To me it’s not a bulky look, but a i can totally kick your ass and you can wash your clothes on my abs look (i would totally have to change my diet to get abs like that). So my trainer, being the big muscley (yes i made that word up) dude that he is was all for it. And he totally made me pay for asking for this. We did clean squats, which took me a while to figure out, with the bar (45lbs). I’m such a little wimp but I’m working on it. Then we did tricep dips and pull ups and repeated everything with less reps each time (but added weight, except the cleans, each set). After finishing that I thought I might die, so then we did rows, dead lifts and pushups. Ouch, ouch, ouchhhhhh. Let’s just say I was walking funny for a few days.

I skipped my typical Thursday run to have fresh legs for the race on Saturday. I kind of wish I just did a shorter distance to shake my legs out and help the recovery process from the weight training the day before.

The Monster Dash was at 8 am at the Georgia World Congress Center, right near the Georgia Dome. It’s not the easiest place to get to by car and the parking is at least $10. To make the process easier I met with Carmen and Jen from my Team Challenge group at the nearest MARTA station (Atlanta’s version of a subway) bright and early on Saturday morning. I was actually on time for the first time in my life (okay maybe not the first time, but it’s rare). We made it down to the race area and I made Carmen take a pre-race photo for me…

Check out that Team Sparkle Skirt and ProCompression Socks!

I wanted to test out my Team Sparkle skirt to see if I liked it and could wear it for the half marathon. It definitely rode up but I think if I can pin it to whatever I wear underneath I’ll be all set for the race.

The race itself so did not go as planned. I was shooting for a time of 1:06 since that’s how quickly I’ve done 6 miles before. I guess I didn’t realize how bad the hills were going to be. So that time was actually a goal time I had said out loud to other people, in reality I wanted to be under an hour. I decided I was going to start out fast and try to reach that goal. Well starting out fast totally messed me up. I went out with 9 min mile pace for the first 1.5 miles, then the hills started and let’s just say that pace started to quickly decline and decline and decline. I struggled to the 3 mile mark and was mentally battling with myself to not walk, I wanted to just stay slow and steady, but I turned a corner, the wind picked up and was blowing in my face and there was a nice hill. I just cursed loudly and started walking. I tried to keep the walking to short time spans but once I start walking it just gets worse and worse. I continued this run walk thing until mile 5, around this time Carmen caught up to me. Seeing her gave me a burst of energy and I decided to keep running with her for the rest of the race. We hit the 6 mile mark and Carmen wanted to stop, but I pointed at the finish line and yelled 0.2, you totally have this! I think it was more for me then her but it kept her going and we made our way to the finish.

Carmen and I after the race

I really really really was disappointed in myself, but I didn’t want that to show to other people and put a damper on their accomplishments. I finished in 1:13:46. Not what I wanted but I finished it. I didn’t really want to admit my time to people afterwards, but sometimes you just have to realize that you have to take pride in what you do. Maybe it wasn’t the time I wanted, but I ran my first 10k and while I did walk some, at least I finished strong. And I know I can improve on that time and be smarter in how I start races. Let’s call it a learning experience and move on to the next.

After the race, I survived!

Since I skipped my Thursday run to have fresh legs for the race, I still had 5 miles to get done on Sunday. I hopped on the treadmill, put on some TV and set the treadmill at an easy pace. It very quickly was clear that my legs were tired and this was going to be a mental struggle. I decided to use this as mental training for the race. I knew this is how I’m going to feel during the half marathon and I need to be prepared. So I just made myself keep going, no stopping. THIS REALLY SUCKED, like REALLY REALLY SUCKED. I’m glad I pushed through the mental struggle and got it done.